This tiny, red floating home on Vancouver's waterfront is selling for under $500,000

Most people would jump at the chance for a waterfront home in Coal Harbour for under $500,000, but there's a catch with this place.

It's in Coal Harbour. The body of water, not the neighbourhood.

For some, like fans of Sleepless in Seattle looking to recreate Tom Hanks's lifestyle, this might not be a catch, but more of a bonus.

The tiny red floating home is a two-storey dwelling with all the comforts of a small Vancouver apartment. There's even a deck on the roof (yes, those are deck chairs on top). Inside the living room and kitchen are essentially the same room, but that's not uncommon in many condos.

On the second floor there's a bedroom, bathroom and space to store clothes (it's hard to call it a closet, as you can see in the photos). It's not a lot of living space, but at 436 square feet it's not an unusual size (just an unusual foundation).

And at $449,000 it's one of the cheaper homes on the market (and significantly cheaper than the floating home at Granville Island).

While the home is well under what most people would pay to buy shelter in Vancouver, it should be noted that what's being bought is only the floating structure, and not the land underneath. Life on the water comes with moorage, which is almost $12,000 per year at the Coal Harbour Marina, and the city requires a licence to allow people to live aboard things, so that's another $1,900.